210 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

done with the strife of parties and get a single united people
behind the Government; then we can carry through our policy".
If the majority is large enough, if the appeal is made with sufficient
excitement of national vanity, and if the Government has its hand
on the armed forces, then the minority parties can be destroyed.
But the resultant Government is not above party; it is a party
Government, carrying out a party policy without criticism to
make it careful or opposition to check its extremists. The
dictatorships of the present day provide a striking illustration.
The Opposition is driven from Constitutional to underground
methods; and the Government, which would not meet criticism
with reasoned defence, must combat conspiracy with secret
police, concentration camps, executions and the other apparatus
of tyranny.

The call for "Business Government" likewise springs either
from misunderstanding or from a desire for dictatorship. The
object of a Board of Directors is to make profit for those who own
the business. The citizens of Britain, however, are not owners of
Britain, ,and a Government whose sole object was to benefit
owners of property would be a party Government of the worst
kind. It is arguable that if the Socialist conception of a classless
society were realised, Government would be chiefly occupied in
business administration of the peopfe's property. Such is the
form of Government envisaged by the Socialist William Morris
in his News from Nowhere, and by Stalin for the U.S.S.R, under
its new Constitution. The U.S.S.R., however, has not yet fully
realised either Socialism or democracy, and it is one of the most
disputed questions of politics whether a classless society can be
realised at all.

Coalitions between parties occur when great events cause the
people to think afresh and to discover that the old issues are out
of date. The War> and the post-War problems leading up to the
crisis of 1931 caused a fuller consideration of the Capitalism-
Socialism issue. Of the questions which had divided Conservatives
and Liberals—Ireland, the House of Lords, Free Trade, Social